Devastation in Los Angeles casts shadow over Oakland fire station closures

The budget cuts that temporarily closed two Oakland Fire Department stations until the summer — with four more likely to browned out next month — had already led both the fire chief and union to warn of dangers posed by reduced service.

On Friday, after a week of devastation and tragedy down south in what has become one of California’s worst-ever fire disasters, the upcoming cuts were weighing especially heavily on the city’s firefighters — and the rest of Oakland.

“It’s heartbreaking — these are people’s lives, not a movie or something we’re watching on TV,” Oakland Fire Chief Damon Covington said of the slew of blazes in the greater Los Angeles area that by Friday had destroyed more than 10,000 homes and other structures, and killed at least 10 people.

Oakland sent 12 firefighters to join an East Bay strike team that is assisting in Southern California’s battle to contain separate fires in the Palisades, Altadena area, Hollywood Hills and three other areas of Los Angeles and southern Ventura counties.

The firefighters were chosen from among volunteers for the strike team after fire agencies down south sent out a call for help through the state’s mass mutual aid system.

By Friday, the two largest blazes in the Southern California region had slowed their growth as firefighters established progress in containment for the first time. Somewhere around 150,000 people remained under evacuation orders.

Back in Oakland, the department has turned its attention to the Oakland Hills, which are designated year-round by Cal Fire as a “very high fire hazard severity zone” — the forested neighborhoods where winding, narrow roads, abundant vegetation and memories of the 1991 firestorm have created an ominous atmosphere.

“People are really learning in real time through the examples in L.A. what could happen here, especially when there are delays to service,” Seth Olyer, president of the firefighters union, IAFF Local 55, said in an interview.

The two stations temporarily closed last week are respectively near Joaquin Miller Park and on Grass Valley Road near Chabot Regional Park, both in the more forested hillside areas prone to fire danger. They will remain closed until June.

But the stations do fetch fewer service calls in the wet winter months, according to fire department data, and they are also located relatively close by to a station on Skyline Boulevard, which will pick up the slack for the stations until summer.

The department expects to save roughly $5 million from the two brownouts and another $10 million from an additional four temporary closures next month, part of the city’s attempt to reel in a crippling budget deficit.

Meanwhile, the equivalent of three full-time fire department positions — likely non-firefighter staff members — are slated to be among 91 or so layoffs expected to soon be announced.

The fire department is second only to the police department in its share of the city’s general purpose fund, which mostly pays worker salaries and other operating costs.

Closures among the department’s 25 total stations would likely increase the burden placed on a skeleton of seven stations that are spread throughout Oakland and carry full ladder trucks with specialized equipment for various emergencies.

During past brownouts, including amid the Great Recession, the seven trucks saw their service calls more than triple, Olyer said.

But the wildfires in L.A. have lent a new sense of urgency to efforts by the firefighter union, to argue that any reductions at the department could pose disastrous consequences.

“If we don’t have a department that can hit the ground running, we’ll be talking about a fire the magnitude of what we’re seeing (in L.A.),” Covington said.

“To think that we’re down (several) firehouses and we have the same capacity that we would have if we were fully operational — we’re deceiving ourselves,” he added.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Shomik Mukherjee is a reporter covering Oakland. Call or text him at 510-905-5495 or email him at shomik@bayareanewsgroup.com.